


Good Times Bad Times

by ScyllaAndCharybdis



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, Background Stozier, Bisexual Richie Tozier, Canonical Character Death, Comfort Sex, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Abortion, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mild Gore, Oral Sex, Unplanned Pregnancy, background reddie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 23:49:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 4,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21024251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScyllaAndCharybdis/pseuds/ScyllaAndCharybdis
Summary: Richie and Beverly's relationship explored and developed through the years.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I don't know what this is, but the idea came to me fully formed like Athena out of Zeus' head. I have opted to split it into several fairly short chapters, rather than one long and unreadable ramble!

“So, I guess the curtains really do match the drapes!”

“Beep Beep, Richie!”

Richie’s head popped up from beneath the covers with a shit-eating grin spreading from ear to ear. “What? It’s a compliment! People would pay tons of money at a salon for your hair color-“

“Richie, we are not doing this right now!” Bev sighed, resting her head back on the pillows so she didn’t have to look at Richie’s dopey grin. Her voice was frustrated, but they both knew her tone was entirely affected. 

They had been doing this kind of thing for a while now. At first, it had been out of pure fear and confusion. The image of the dark, damp sewers around them as they fled from It’s lair; the terror and desperation of being so hopelessly lost; the turning point between child and adulthood that paved their path home - all of those things had swirled in the air around their heads for the following summers. But now things were different and those memories felt like some distant nightmare: the kind of dream where you wake up and are unsure what’s real and what’s not. They had started this arrangement in a casual, mutual sort of way. Both had a lot of things to work through and neither had been very successful in making new friends outside of the Losers, anyway. 

Richie shrugged and held up his hands in surrender, knowing when a joke just wasn’t going to land. He slid back beneath the covers, kissing his way from her chest to the divot where her hip met her pelvis. Bev shuddered under the gentle touch. It was nice in a two-fold sort of way. On one hand, it felt nice to have someone be so gentle and tender – something she experienced increasingly rarely in her life. On the other hand, it was also really nice when Richie had something to do with his mouth that wasn’t talking.

He ran his tongue experimentally along Beverly’s slit and she moaned softly in approval. Richie took it slow, reading her body language. It wasn’t something they had explicitly agreed upon, but Bev had a tendency to tense up when she was uncomfortable. She would never tell him to stop, never outright, but Richie knew her well enough to tell when something was wrong. At the moment, however, everything seemed to be going just right. He continued to lick and suck, swirling his tongue in the way that she had confirmed drove her wild. He slid one finger into her and then another, relishing the way her hips bucked and ground down against his hand. 

“Richie!” she cried out breathlessly. 

She always called him Richie, even now when they were a little older. He didn’t dislike it, per say, but it did feel a little weird in moments like this. He had once tried to convince her to go with Rich, or hell even Richard, when they were fucking. Bev had countered with an offer to call him Dick, which, as she put it, was at least a nickname he had earned. So, in short, he dropped it.

“Oh, fuck! Richie, yes! Just like that!” Her hands drifted down to tangle into his unruly curls, tugging lightly as she arched her back and writhed. He did as she said and watched as she came apart around him. When the waves of pleasure had subsided and she could see properly again, Bev sunk relaxed and content into the pile of pillows. Richie crawled up to lay next to her and caught her mouth in a passionate kiss, swapping some fluids along the way. 

“Did the madam find everything to her satisfaction?” he asked, affecting a posh accent.

Bev pushed both hands into Richie’s chest and spun so that he was now laying prone and she was straddling his waist, “Alright, wise guy. Your turn.”


	2. Chapter 2

“I see the way you look at them.”

They sat on the hood of Richie’s car, drinking some wine coolers his parents had bought for them. They mostly didn’t care what he did with his friends as long as it didn’t end him up in jail. His father had told him more than once that they drew the line at bail money.

“What are you talking about?” Richie chuckled nervously.

“I see the way you look at the other guys. At Stan. At Eddie.” Bev’s voice was matter of fact. She wasn’t lobbing an accusation, merely making an observation. The same way she would have mentioned how bright the stars looked tonight.

“What, I’m not allowed to look at my friends all of a sudden?” He started harshly, getting defensive in spite of himself, “And here I was thinking that this here was a free count-“ Richie began to dissolve into a vaguely southern politician’s voice before Beverly cut him off.

“Richie, it’s okay if you like boys.”

Richie chose this moment to be extremely interested in the bottle in his hand. He could feel the shame and embarrassment causing blood to rush into his ears and he was grateful that it was dark enough out to hide his flushed face. The silence hung awkwardly in the air for a moment. When it became apparent that Richie, for once, had no clever retort Beverly pushed onward, “I don’t care who you think about, or who you look at, but I don’t want you to lie to me. If you don’t like what we’re doing, we can stop.”

Richie just breathes for a second, picking his words wisely, “Bev, it’s not like that. I mean, it’s kinda like that. But I just – if I were to like guys, that doesn’t mean that I can’t like you too, right?” He gulps down air like a man running a marathon, “Because I haven’t been lying, Bev, I really do like you. Especially the way you put your mouth-“

“Beep Beep, Richie!” She punches him amicably in the shoulder and laughs, a pure sound like crystal glasses chiming together. 

They sit in a comfortable silence and Richie nuzzles his head somewhere between Bev’s shoulder and bosom. With the tension released, he felt the tears start to run down his cheeks. Bev ran a hand absentmindedly through his hair as he cried, eyes politely glued to the sky. If she’d ever brought it up, Richie would have blamed everything on the alcohol. But she never brought it up.


	3. Chapter 3

She was quieter than usual. In fact, she had been giving him the cold shoulder pretty much all day. Bev had stormed up to Richie during lunch and demanded they go to his house after school before walking away again. And that was it.

The ride to his house was not a long one, but the tension in the car made it feel like an eternity. Richie dug through his glovebox to offer Bev a cigarette, which she politely declined. She opted instead to stare out the window. She was doing that little airplane thing with her hand and her head bobbed along to the song on the radio (some glam rock bullshit that Richie hated, but Bev liked) but her thoughts were elsewhere.

Richie’s thoughts, on the other hand, were going a mile a minute. He had asked her if something was wrong when they got in the car, but she had just said, “I don’t want to hang around this crappy school longer than I need to, Richie. Let’s go.” Not good, not good, not good.

_Is she mad? Did I do something wrong? Did I miss an anniversary? Wait, we don’t really have an anniversary. It’s not her birthday. Is it? No, it’s not. Is she gonna dump me? Wait, fuck. Can you even dump somebody you’re not technically dating?_

At the house, Beverly went upstairs while Richie grabbed them both some Cokes out of the fridge. He knew his parents wouldn’t be home until late, and the two had fallen into quite a comfortable after school routine. Richie kicked both pairs of shoes into the bin by the door on his way up the stairs. His mother insisted they were a “shoes-off” house now, but he struggled to see a reason it should matter at all.

Upstairs in his bedroom, Bev was sitting cross-legged on the bed, fingering nervously at the tattered edge of her cut-off jeans. She smiled softly as Richie entered the room, yelling nonsense in a terrible French accent. He handed her the soda before bowing dramatically and, seeing his japes did nothing to lighten the mood, climbed up next to her. “Can you tell me what’s going on now?”

Bev laid her head on Richie’s shoulder and closed her eyes. She took a deep breath and said, barely above a whisper, “I’m pregnant.”

Richie blinked a couple times and swallowed his gut reaction to yell. He knew how yelling could be upsetting for her. “Are you sure?”

“Positive. I was late and I tried to wait it out but still nothing. I took, like, five tests. Richie, I’m pregnant.” Her voice was measured, like she had rehearsed this reveal. She stared straight into the room, unable to meet Richie’s gaze. If she had, she would have seen him turn ghost white. He didn’t want to overreact, but he was also pretty sure the world was ending.

_What am I supposed to do? I can’t be a dad! I can’t even be a functioning person most days! Holy shit! What about college? I can’t just leave her! I did this! This is my fault! I wasn’t being careful! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!_

“What are we going to do?” Richie was vaguely proud of how non-panicked his voice came out.

“I don’t know. I really don’t,” Bev wrapped her arms around Richie’s torso and he in turn ran a hand comfortingly through her hair. “But I can’t tell my dad. He’ll kill me. He’ll literally fucking kill me, Richie. He doesn’t even know about – about us,” she began to breathe faster as tears welled in her eyes.

“I know, Bev, I know. It’ll be okay. We’ll figure it out. It’ll all be okay. I’ll make sure of it.” He hoped he wasn’t lying.


	4. Chapter 4

They drove all the way to Augusta for the weekend, a big undertaking for two teenagers from some Podunk town. Prom dress shopping, Bev told everyone. The shops in town had, like, two nice dresses max and she wanted to look at least somewhat presentable for the big day. This wasn’t wholly untrue – the shops in Derry really did suck.

They drove with the windows down and rock music blasting the whole way. They bickered over radio stations and joked and laughed. They even stopped and got milkshakes for the road. It was nice. It was normal. This was a normal road trip between two friends, enjoying the last few weeks of high school together. 

And if they maybe made a detour to a doctor’s office, who’s to say?

Beverly did buy a dress that weekend, big and ruffly and pink – nothing like what she would want to wear. She spun around in the dress shop while Richie narrated like she was on a catwalk. She picked the one that she thought her father would like the most. Richie nodded understandingly, even as her hands lingered across the other less eye-burning options.

_Daddy’s little princess._

When the price tag of the dress left her breathless, Richie footed the bill. Bev felt ashamed and was beet red when the woman at the counter rang up the purchase. Richie assured her over and over that it was fine. After all, it wasn’t even his money. The cashier kindly offered a matching garishly pink tie and cummerbund, which Richie firmly turned down. Something-Something-Pink-Is-Bad-For-My-Complexion.

_Nobody needs to know._

The day after graduation, the Losers sit around a campfire in the woods. Richie had smuggled over some beers and Bill had gotten his hands on some sparklers. Eddie was loudly and passionately berating them on how stupid and dangerous this whole operation was, and Stan was stuck with the hopeless task of nodding attentively and assuring him they weren’t about to start a wildfire.

“You can’t possibly know that for sure! I just saw this PSA that said-“

“Eddie, they’re big boys now. I think they can handle it.”

“Big idiots are what they are!” He huffed, crossing his arms defeatedly.

Beverly sat in the warm glow of the fire. The alcohol mixed with the gentle night breeze was very relaxing and she was a little more in her cups than she would like to admit. Once the lure of pyromania had faded, the boys returned to the circle. They talked and talked and talked: about the past, about this year in particular, and about the future. Everyone was leaving Derry as quickly as they could, it seemed.

“W-What about you, Bev?” Bill asked. His stutter had been much better as of late, but would rear its head when he was tired or intoxicated.

“I don’t quite know yet.” She had thought about it constantly, plotting escape route after escape route, but all of them ultimately led nowhere. “But I’m sure as hell not staying here forever.”


	5. Chapter 5

Richie left for college and went all the way West. Everything was different, but that was exactly what he wanted. He made just enough friends to keep his mom from worrying, and attended class just enough to keep his dad from flying him home immediately.

He had a string of girlfriends who he would never call his girlfriend, and a string of male friends who it would be hard to justify to an outsider that they were really just friends. After his freshman year, he stopped coming home for breaks altogether. He always had somewhere different to crash and these new friends came from real money: the kind of money that took exotic vacations over long weekends.

His new friends teased him about his penchant for redheads and he wanted to argue that it wasn’t just his “type”. It was something more – something deep and meaningful that he just couldn’t vocalize. But everything he came up with just sounded dumb, so he ended up being that two-dimensional guy who exclusively dated people with red hair. Deep down, he felt like there was a piece he was missing. He felt like he was forgetting something.

_Maybe I’ve been drinking too much._

Beverly left home the year after the Losers left for college. She had squirreled away some money for a trip down the coast and surreptitiously packed her belongings in increments she thought her father wouldn’t notice. She snuck out in the middle of the night, leaving anything she couldn’t carry in two duffel bags. She had thought about leaving a note behind, drafting the message a hundred times before deciding against it. The less he knew, the better.

She spent hours at the bus station, and didn’t breathe normally until the lights of Derry faded to nothing behind her.

A pretty girl like her didn’t have much trouble finding a place to stay. At times, she felt like she was being handed from bad boyfriend to worse boyfriend. She was immensely practiced in how to grin and bear it. She knew she’d been in bad situations before and had made it out just fine, but she could never put her finger on what exactly those situations were. She felt like these were the only kind of relationships she’d ever had, ever would have.

_I’ve had better. I know I have._

Had she? She couldn’t seem to remember.


	6. Chapter 6

They all got the call from Mike.

The memories began to trickle back. The remembering got easier the more they talked and laughed over dinner. It was like nostalgia on steroids. Someone says something that triggers another thing, and next thing they knew they’re all tweens again. And there’s nothing that tweens do better than feel embarrassed.

Richie made some dumb joke, definitely at Eddie’s expense, and looked across the table as Bev threw her head back in laughter. The pale expanse of her neck and her chest heaving as she caught her breath stirred something inside him. His gaze lingered a beat too long, because suddenly he was gazing into her sparkling blue-gray eyes. She quirked an eyebrow and Richie felt his face heat up.

_Does she remember, too?_

The rest of the dinner did not go splendidly, to put it lightly. Outside of the restaurant, the Losers stood at different ends of the parking lot, debriefing in pairs. Richie stood smoking under a flickering streetlight and Bev huddled next to him to bum a light. 

“It’s kinda surreal being back here, isn’t it?” she asked, taking a drag and looking up at the sky. There were a lot more stars here than in the city, that’s for sure.

“It’s fucking bonkers. It’s been ages, but also it feels like just yesterday that we were-“

“I’m really glad you’re here, Rich,” she interjected. “It’s really good to see you again.” She turned on her heel and headed back towards the restaurant, to where Mike and Bill were whispering conspiratorially.

_Rich. Not Richie. Just Rich._

He made a mental note to be careful what he wished for, and crushed the cigarette butt under his heel.


	7. Chapter 7

Splitting up was a terrible idea. Inadvisable. Incorrigible. Instant suicide. So of course, they all split up and Richie is left alone twiddling his thumbs at the dusty old inn.

“Richie!” He heard a woman’s voice call from the end of the hall. He turned, vaguely confused.

_I thought she left already?_

“Bev, is that you?” He got no response.

“Richie!” The voice called again, louder this time and more urgent. “Richie!”

Richie walked briskly down the hallway, picking up speed as the voice got louder and more desperate.

_Is she okay? Is she hurt? What is she still doing here?_

The old, rundown hotel floors sagged under every step and let out a piercingly loud creak as he landed in front of the door. His hand rested on the doorknob as he heard the voice drop lower, softer, and moan breathlessly.

“Oh fuck, Richie!”

He didn’t remember turning the handle, but the door swung open either way. On the opposite end of the room, sprawled out naked on the bed, was Bev. But, not this Bev. Young Bev, almost exactly as he remembered her: curly hair just barely brushing down to her chin, splashes of freckles dotting from head to toe, long eyelashes fluttering like angel wings. Her legs were splayed out wide and her hips were arched up off the bed. She moaned and panted, moving as if in tandem with some invisible figure Richie couldn’t see.

“Bev?” Richie would never admit that his voice was shaking, but that’s exactly what was happening. Nothing about this scene playing out in front of him was right.

Bev’s head lolled bonelessly to the side to look at him while her body continued to writhe rhythmically as if it were a separate entity. “Oh, fuck yes, Richie. It’s so fucking big.” She smiled unnervingly. The face, the voice, hell even the intonation, was all right, but where there should be fire behind Beverly’s eyes there was nothing.

“You’re not Bev. She wouldn’t be caught dead saying that to me – I’d let it go right to my head.” Richie tried to chuckle at his own joke but his throat was too dry. He turned back towards the door, readying himself to sprint as fast as possible out of there.

“Richie it-it-it hurts…” Her voice changed from a sigh into a sob on the last syllable. The voice in Richie’s head screamed _it’s not real, you dumbass. It’s playing you! It’s not real!_ But none of that stopped him from turning back to the bed. 

Bev laid there, still about the same age, but with an ashen complexion that added years and years. Her limbs hung limply about her and her head was still cranked to the side, eyes staring dead into Richie’s, “Richie, help me. It hurts so bad.”

She jostled about slightly as she spoke, sending a wave of blood cascading between her legs. “You did this. You made me do this. You hurt me, and now you’re just going to stand there. Help me, Richie, help me!”

Her voice grew louder as her body began to jerk and seize. She writhed and screamed, shaking the metal frame of the bed so violently it scraped across the floor. With each movement, the flow of blood increased, pouring like a fountain off of the bed and onto the floorboards. As the blood hit the ground, it seemed to instantaneously congeal. Gelatinous monstrosities began to take form, screaming faces and half-formed limbs dragging themselves out of the puddle. Richie jumped backwards, trying to avoid the mess seeping across the room as tiny hands grasped fruitlessly at his shoes and pants.

One of the figures raised its disproportionately large head out of the muck and stared at him with bulging eyes – eyes that were his own. Its mouth hung slack and clearly was mustering up another accusation, but Richie found a sudden burst of – rage? Stupidity? Bravery? He raised his leg and stamped on the creature, smushing it out of existence while screaming, “It’s been years, you little bitch!”

In an instant, the whole lighting in the room changed. He swiveled his head around and everything was back to normal. Richie staggered as far as the bathroom before his knees gave out. He slumped over the toilet and emptied the contents of his stomach, which, based on his recent diet of mostly bourbon, was not much.

_What the actual fuck was that?_


	8. Chapter 8

They clung to each other as they fled the crumbling cavern. Rocks were crashing down on every side and for a few terrifying moments it seemed like Eddie may not be the only one trapped down there forever. They watched the house implode, years of nightmares and suffering and loss now only so much dust beneath their feet. And Richie cried - and screamed - and tried to tear free of his friends’ hands, holding him at once both tightly and tenderly.

Back at the inn, Richie scrubbed his broken glasses under the water of the faucet. The blood, Eddie’s blood, that had seeped into the cracks didn’t seem to be going anywhere. He balled up his wet, dirty, torn clothes and tossed them into the bathroom wastebasket. It didn’t matter, anyway. He crawled into bed in just his boxers and socks and pulled a pillow tightly over his head. He thought about screaming, but all he could muster was a gentle sob. The others had gone for a drink in town, but Richie had turned them down. Mike had grasped his shoulder firmly and said, “Just call us if you need anything.” His tone was kind, but there had been lines of worry etched into his forehead.

A soft rap at the door startled Richie out of his misery. He laid still, wondering if he was quiet enough if they would just go away. No dice. Another knock sounded, a little louder this time. “Richie, are you there?” Bev’s voice whispered against the crack in the door, “Richie, baby, it’s me. Can I come in?” She paused for a second before taking his silence as an affirmation.

The door was unlocked and Beverly padded quietly into the room. She climbed into bed next to Richie and wrapped her limbs around him, pressing her face to his collarbone. Her hair was still damp from the shower and she smelt faintly of strawberry shampoo. They stayed like that for a while and Richie began to sob harder, rocking the bed ever so slightly. Bev cooed and stroked his face and hair, muttering comforting gibberish. Richie’s breathing slowly evened out and he focused on keeping time with Beverly’s, slow and deep. When Richie spoke, his voice was strained and gruff, “Why is it that everyone I like dies?”

Bev glanced up and cracked a small smile, feigning offense, “Hey now. I’m still around, and I thought you liked me well enough!”

Richie met her eyes, sparkling even in the dim light of the evening, “Yeah, I guess you were pretty okay.”

He cupped her face with one hand and pulled her into a gentle kiss. Despite the years apart, the fire was still there. Beverly wriggled out of the oversized t-shirt and sweatpants she had undoubtably borrowed from another Loser. She pulled Richie on top of her with a few words of gentle encouragement. All of a sudden, he was sixteen again and nervous.

The sex was neither good nor bad, but it was cathartic. Mingling tears streaked off of their faces onto the sheets and at the end they both cried out different wrong names. It was exactly the way it had been when they were younger: tired, sweaty limbs all tangled up while their minds were somewhere else. Beverly was the first to break out of the embrace, scooping her discarded clothing up from the floor, “Come on. We’re all supposed to be getting drinks at the bar to celebrate.”

“Wasn’t this a celebration enough? What’s next? You’ll want me to shove a birthday candle up my-“

“Beep Beep, Richie!”


End file.
